Tracking Force - Where to set it?

The trick to setting tracking force is to not use any sort of gauge at all. Simply look at the stylus (use a magnifier if need be) as you set it down onto a record with the cue...

Note the deflection vertically. The position of the cantelever should be precisely in the middle of the opening from whence it exits the cartridge body. In the case where that is hard to see (often it is) you can watch the deflection as you start with a very light tracking force, and slowly move it up... the deflection has a center *linear* region due to the suspension in the cartridge. You can see this region by eye with out too much practice. Below the region, the styus "stands up" too much. Above the region, the stlus looks "low" and too close to the body.

The ideal is usually in the center of this region. Since no two cartridges are ever exactly the same, this makes it easy to set the tracking to the exact condition of the cartridge you are using every time.

It may take a few times through - and checks with your gauge, but after that you can do it quickly and by eye every time!

Note, that it is important to ZERO the arm accurately, if you want to use the built in gram calibrated feature of many arms...

And, yes, I think Sean is correct you have to change the weight to compensate for the brush thingie...with my method you can ignore that and just look at the cantilever.

Imho, in MM carts there are *many* that sound way better than the venerable old Shure design... Ortofon, AT, and a few others come to mind.

Bear: I agree about the old Shure's "lack" of sound quality. I personally liked some of the older Ortofon's, Stanton's and AT cartridges, but found that the AT's almost all exhibited a pretty hot top end. The cool thing about some of the AT's and Signet's was that you could buy one of their higher end cartridges and then experiment with the various stylus assemblies. I remember one specific cartridge that they made that had something like 17 or 18 different user replaceable stylus'. Some had different shaped diamonds, some had different cantilever materials, etc.... Each one had a sound of their own. As such, you could literally buy one cartridge and a handful of stylus' assemblies and have the sound of a different cartridge in a matter of seconds every day of the week.

Outside of all of this, it is pretty funny how doing some simple changes to cartridge loading within the phono stage can make such drastic changes. You can literally get the tonal balance, transient response, noise floor, etc... to do a 360* change by simply swapping a few resistors and capacitors. Sean
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I bet you are right that there are better cartridges out there, but I got the shure as a gift, so I don't even want to hear what else is out there and get the itch to spend $!

Doug, which V15? is it the typeVxMR? Or another version? Yes there are almost always better cartridges out there no matter how much money you just spent.

Bear: After re-thinking your comments, they make perfect sense. Your method would be akin to setting "ride height" on a vehicle. If the suspension was "perfectly centered", it could make large excursions in either direction without fear of "bottoming out" or going into compression. This also keeps the coils or armature somewhat centered in the magnetic field. This should result in increased dynamic range, higher s/n ratios and slightly higher output levels. That is, if the cartridge is actually designed correctly to begin with.

The one drawback to this is that one might run into added stress on the cantilever and cartridge suspsenion, not to mention that the tracking force would probably be slightly higher than what we think we can get away with. I don't really see that as being a problem though so long as the cartridge / arm are properly aligned and the stylus is in good shape. Having "clean" records is mandatory if you want the best in performance and want them to last, regardless of the tracking force being used.

THANK YOU for opening my eyes. Hopefully, my ears will agree with you : ) Sean
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